Santana Plays Vegas

Carlos Santana is beginning a two-year residency at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas. I never thought of Carlos as a Vegas act, but there you go. Maybe Vegas has changed. But Carlos is still Carlos....

"In my own vision, I feel like we're bringing a Trojan horse to Las Vegas," Carlos Santana says.

"Not necessarily to infiltrate or to infect," he is quick to add. "But Las Vegas is basically realized on luck, chance and fortune. ... We're bringing something really different. It's called power to God's grace. There's no chance with that one."

The Santana sound can be "sexy, swampy and funky, but it still has the element of (John) Coltrane and Mahalia Jackson in it," he says. "It makes your hair stand up beyond the illusion of entertainment or show business.

"I love infusing and activating people with knowing that you and everyone in your family has a spark of the divine and you can make a difference."

[From "Spiritual Validation: Carlos Santana calls still being relevant an incredible blessing." May 29, 2009. Las Vegas Journal-Review]

The Sixties

I'm glad I'm old enough to remember the 1960s. And I'm glad my parents were, like, with it, and not fuddy duds living in some fuddy dud place. It seemed like everything was possible then. But maybe that's just because I was a kid. Either way, everyone should have such a powerful feeling of endless, open possibility at least once in their life.

Strike Vote!

Wendy and Amado at yesterday's strike vote for Cupe 79, which is Wendy's union. We really hope there won't have to be a strike, but it's a real possibility now that it was approved by more than 90% of the members.

Amado has a new haircut he just got that morning. (Though we couldn't quite capture him smiling in a photo!) He's not actually taller than Wendy yet. That's just trick photography.

Just looking at this picture makes me feel cool....

Missing Santa Cruz again today....

Talking Woodstock

From an article on Ang Lee's new movie, "Talking Woodstock":

Lee ran a hippie camp to teach the extras the right way to behave and carry themselves. The filmmakers said their hardest task was getting the extras to look like '60s youths.

Screenwriter James Schamus, who heads Focus Features, which is releasing "Taking Woodstock," said there's a different look to today's young people, with their passion for fitness and disdain for pubic hair.

Said Schamus: "When you think about it, a generation of people who weren't fat, who weren't staring at themselves in the mirror all the time, and not shaving everything off down there, it captures the difference of 40 years right there."

VICTORVILLE MODEL HOMES DEMOLISHED - SHOCKING VIDEO: Part 5

Wow, cheaper to destroy these new houses than to sell them! Does my brother know about this? It's right near his house. In fact, he may have built them! Sol, what's going on out there?

Tamil Protest

A huge Tamil protest shut down Toronto last night, including the Gardiner Expressway. Tamils are demanding the Canadian government do something to stop the violence in Sri Lanka, which has truly been horrible - more than 300 civilians were killed and thousands more were injured in just the past few days, most of them Tamils.

Protest tactics like this aren't helping their cause in public opinion, that's for sure. Also, if Canada did act to sanction Sri Lanka would that stop the violence? I don't think so. The Sri Lanka war is coming to a brutal end and perhaps the thing that would save the most lives at this point is for the Tamil Tigers to surrender. At this point they can't win the war anyway. Wouldn't that force the Sri Lankan government to declare a ceasefire and deal with the Tamils as people, instead of indiscriminately shelling civilian areas?

Happy Mother's Day!

Mom, you're the greatest! Thank you for everything, including life-long memories such as the one pictured above! (1976 :-)

Awkward Family Photos

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

Wow! I have a blog!

Meditation

Nothing in the world
is as soft and yielding as water.
Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible,
nothing can surpass it.

The soft overcomes the hard;
the gentle overcomes the rigid.
Everyone knows this is true,
but few can put it into practice.

-Tao Te Ching

I may not be in California...

...but sometimes surfing photos are the next best thing.